This beautiful recipe comes from the 1950 mini cookbook, Here Are the Cakes America Loves – Royal Cakes made with Royal Cream of Tartar Baking Powder. The cake consists of a chocolate jelly roll cake, and filled with a marshmallow filling. There is a variation listed for ‘Chocolate Roll de Luxe’ with a Thin Bitter …

Purely for fun, Sir Francis Galton, (FRS, knighted in 1909), described in the publication Nature in 1906 how to cut a cake in a way “so as to leave a minimum of exposed surface to become dry”. Essentially, you cut out the middle, push the remaining cake halves together. Then, you keep cutting the center parts and pushing …

Like the fresh watermelon from the vine, this old recipe from 1890, (The Model Cookbook), has a pink interior with ‘seeds’ made up of raisins. The cake is flavored with rose water, a flavoring not used much today but would be a lovely touch for a light, summertime cake. Water Melon Cake Take one-half …

What makes a Delicate Cake – delicate? Not sure, but here are four versions from my 1890 copy of The Model Cook Book: A selection of nearly 3000 Thoroughly Tested and Choice Recipes by Mrs. Frances Willey. Delicate Cake – No. 1 One cup of sugar, one and one-quarter cups of flour, four tablespoonfuls of …

Think angel food cake is a recent invention? Angel food cake has been around a very long time, and the author of The American Pastry Cook, Jessup Whitehead, goes into detail about its origins way back in 1894, and makes you appreciate this gem of a cake. His tips, which are still put to use …

The 1911 copy of Royal Baker and Pastry Cook included a recipe for chocolate cakes baked in patty pans. Of course, since the recipe book is published by a baking powder company, baking powder is the most important ingredient. My copy included a small flyer, Facts Worth Knowing, describing the differences in the different baking …